No not the one in New York, but the one in London. As I mentioned before I dropped in on a pal who works in Clerkenwell today and seeing as I was in the area thought I'd follow up my last Shipscook's London post with a brief look at the area between the place where Douglas works and Farringdon tube as it has some fascinating history.
Like of lot of central London the area has had its ups and downs. Until fairly recently it was the centre of the city's print trade and I remember when I started working in PR (back in the days before computers) frequently running artwork to the various printers and typesetters in the area, Whole buildings like the ones here
would be occupied by different printing companies and none of the buildings ever seemed to have lifts! However new technology and a general decline in the print trade has since freed up plenty of quite funky premises for conversion into loft dwellings, architectural practice offices and design studios.
There are still some curious little shops like International Magic here
fighting for survival amongst all the trendy bars and restaurants.
Back in the 19th Century the area started to attract people from Italy who were fleeing poverty and political unrest, so much so that in 1863 the Italian community opened its own church in Clerkenwell Road, St Peter's seen here next to the Italian food shop. The blue plaque on the building over the road is for Hiram Maxim, inventor of the Maxim gun.
St Peter's was designed by the Irish architect Sir John Miller-Bryson and based upon the basilica of San Crisogono in Rome. Unfortunately it was shut when I visited so I could not see the rather splendid interior and had to make do with the mosaic frieze from over the door
Within the portico are two memorials, one to the fallen local Italian soldiers from World War One and just above it is this one
which has a very sad history. When Mussolini declared war on Britain in 1940 Churchill had all Italian men in the UK rounded up and interned, even those who had fled Italy to get away from the fascists. One of the government's bright ideas was to pack some of them off to Canada on the Arandora Star, only a German U-boat torpedoed the liner and about 700 Italians drowned. this memorial is to them.
antlady69
Pro 
The Arando Star story is very sad indeed. Fuels my opinion even more that war is shite!
Thanks for this interesting post. The church sounds like it's well worth a visit!